Young Lion of the Woods eBook

Captain, starting at the report, remarked, “perhaps
that Indian (Paul) has been watching and following.”
Here the Captain’s words were cut short by a
loud cry from one of the children and the sound of
a splash. Little Jack, the fourth child, had
tripped against the forward rail and gone overboard.
His mother, almost as quickly as the flash of a gun,
threw herself overboard at the stern of the sloop,
holding on to the rail with her hands and calling to
the little fellow to catch hold of her dress, as the
tide carried him toward her. He was too far out
to reach her skirt, and the running water carried
him by her. She immediately let go both hands
and floated from the vessel, and made a desperate
effort to reach her boy. The Captain, almost
beside himself, put the helm hard down, and was in
the act of plunging in. Meantime his wife and
son were drifting farther away. Just then, making
a second desperate effort, she succeeded in grasping
her child. At this moment a canoe shot like an
arrow past the sloop, in it was Paul Guidon, paddling
with might and main, making straight for the drowning
mother and her boy. In another minute he had the
child grasped firmly in his long sinewy arms, and
laying his breast and head over the stern of the canoe,
he called to the mother to grasp at once his long
hair as its ends fell into the water. He managed
to get the child safely into his canoe, but he experienced
great difficulty in saving its mother. She drifted
fully one hundred yards, but all the distance holding
stoutly to the Indian’s locks. With all
the strength of Paul Guidon he was not able to get
Mrs. Godfrey into the canoe. Once he nearly succeeded,
but almost upset his little bark. He told her
to cling tightly to his hair, as he shoved the paddle
over her head, and at last he got the canoe to move
slowly ahead, and in a few minutes time he was at
the side of the sloop, and the mother and child were
rescued from a watery grave. The Indian would
not go on board, and as soon as he saw that the mother
and child were likely to recover, he pulled away to
the shore.

The child soon recovered, but the mother lay upon
the deck for some time in a half unconscious state.
At times a quiet happiness seemed singing in her soul,
that often broke into words of praise as the vessel
drifted along in the stillness. On the right
and left slept the country with its wooded hills and
dales. As Margaret Godfrey recovered she said,
“Charles, we appear to be sleeping on to our
destination.” “Yes,” he said;
“but perhaps that Indian has been watching and
following us, hiding among the trees along the shore;
and as we have been going slowly all day, he could
with ease keep way with us. He may now consider
us far enough away from the fort to decoy and murder
us, seize our vessel and goods, and no suspicion rest
upon him as the murderer and robber.”

“It may be that he has accomplices on our track;
a band of savages to quietly dispose of us and seize
our possessions.” As he spoke these words
he appeared much more agitated than on the previous
evening. Margaret replied, “God’s
will be done! We must anchor at some point to-night—­Why
not anchor here? At the earnest solicitation of
his wife, Captain Godfrey consented to run the sloop
toward the shore and anchor.